"'Bet a blue stack on it,' Bill answers. ' I deems these yere gents soft. Before I'd ride sech ponies as them, I'd go projectin' 'round some night an' steal one.'
"'Them ponies is shorely a heap slothful,' Jim answers.
"'At this mebby them Road Runners ruffles their feathers an' runs on swifter, jest to show what a slow racket keepin' ahead of me an' Peets is. An' these yere locoed birds keeps up sech conversations for hours.
"Mind I ain't sayin' that what I tells you is what them Road Runners really remarks; but I turns it over to you-all the way it strikes me an' Doc at the time. What I aims to relate, how-ever, is an incident as sheds light on how wise an' foxy Road Runners be.
"Doc Peets an' me, as I states, ain't lavishin' no onreasonable notice on these yere birds, an' they've been scatterin' along the trail for mebby it's an hour, when one of 'em comes to a plumb halt, sharp. The other stops likewise an' rounds up ag'inst his mate; an' bein' cur'ous to note what's pesterin 'em, Peets an' me curbs to a stand-still. The Road Runner who stops first—the same bein' Bill— is lookin' sharp an' interested-like over across the plains.
"'Rattlesnake,' he imparts to his side partner.
"'Where's he at?' says the side partner, which is Jim, 'where's this yere snake at, Bill? I don't note no rattlesnake.'
"'Come round yere by me,' Bill says. 'Now on a line with the top of yonder mesa an' a leetle to the left of that soap-weed; don't you- all see him quiled up thar asleep?'
"'Which I shorely does,' says Jim, locatin' the rattlesnake with his beady eye, 'an' he's some sunk in slumber. Bill, that serpent is our meat.'
"'Move your moccasins easy,' says Bill, 'so's not to turn him out. Let's rustle up some flat cactuses an' corral him.'